Yordan Alvarez: The Hulkiest Rookie of the Year of All-Time

Yordan Alvarez was amazing last year. Astros fans know that. Apparently everyone else in the American league knew that too. That’s why he was Rookie of the Year. That’s why he was walked over 14% of the time. Because no one wanted to take the approximately one in 12 chance that on any given at bat he would crush a dinger.

His rookie slash line: .313/.412/.655. His OPS of 1.067, just behind Mike Trout, would have been third in MLB if he had qualified. His OPS+ was 173. In case you don’t what that means, he was 73% better than the average hitter in baseball in 2019.

Which gets us to the point. OPS+ (or from Fangraphs, wRC+) gives us a way to measure the relative batting proficiency of hitters across time periods. By this measure Yordan Alvarez is the Hitting Hulk of Rookies of the Year since the award started in 1948. (Jackie Robinson was the first ROY)

Except one.

The following chart ranks the best rookies of the year by OPS+

2019 Rookie of the Year, Yordan Alvarez, had the highest OPS+ all-time among American League winners, tied with Jose Abreu. Only Willie McCovey had a higher rookie OPS+ than Alvarez. (McCovey only played 52 games, so I say he comes with an asterisk)

Alvarez hit better than Aaron Judge, Mike Trout, Mark McGuire, Frank Robinson, Albert Pujols, even Ted Williams (160) and Joe DiMaggio (128) in their rookie years. Of course, many great players were not great rookies, and many great rookies turned out to be one-hit wonders.

Still, it’s fun to stand back and appreciate with a little historical perspective just how great Yordan was last year.